In Debut, Laura Thweatt Could be First American at New York City Marathon

To pronounce Laura Thweatt’s last name, say “sweet” with a lisp. “I’ll know I’ve made it when everyone pronounces my name right,” she told Runner’s World.

Thweatt, 26, could take a big step toward greater recognition when she makes her marathon debut in New York City on Sunday. In a year in which the top Americans are bypassing fall marathons to prepare for the Olympic Marathon Trials in February, Thweatt is a strong candidate to be the first U.S. woman finisher.

The reigning national cross country champion is approaching her first marathon with a mix of steady-as-she-goes workmanship and anticipation of the unknown. On the one hand, other than longer long runs, “my training has been very, very similar to what I’ve been doing,” Thweatt said.

On the other, well, it’s the marathon. “It’s going to be extremely challenging, a tough, tough grind, and I might be out there by myself for more miles than I want to think about,” she said about the separate start for the small group of elite women.

Long Road to Elite

Thweatt was a good but not great runner at the University of Colorado; she never finished higher than third in a conference championship. After graduating in 2011 she stayed in Boulder, but thought at least as much about attending grad school as making a go at professional running. (For starters, she wasn’t sponsored at the time.) After considering her low mileage as a high schooler in Durango, Colorado, and the injuries she had in college while adjusting to more rigorous training, she decided she had untapped running potential.

Soon after she started working with Lee Troop, a three-time Olympic marathoner for Australia with a 2:09 PR who now coaches the Boulder Track Club. With times such as a 15:36 track 5,000 meters in 2013, Thweatt became more a name that flitted around the edge of a hardcore fan’s consciousness than a national champion candidate. To add balance, and a little income, she started coaching at Monarch High School in Louisville, Colorado, and working in a running store. She still has both of those part-time jobs.

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She plugged away, and had a breakthrough year in 2014. In one race, she lowered her 5,000 meters personal best by almost 32 seconds, to 15:04.98, the sort of time needed to make national teams. By the end of the year, she had set a PR in every distance she contested, from 1500 meters (4:10.55) to the half marathon (1:11:02).

She seemed poised to continue that momentum when, in February in Boulder, she won the U.S. cross country title by 31 seconds, a huge winning margin in an 8K race. The following month she finished second, behind Olympian Amy Cragg, at the national 15K championship.

Runner, Interrupted

But Thweatt finished a disappointing 29th at the world cross country championships in Guiyang, China, on March 28. She was only the second American, behind Sara Hall, who had run the LA Marathon 13 days earlier. On the last lap of her national cross country win in Boulder, she had taken a bad step into a ditch with her right foot. When she got home from China, Thweatt was told she had a stress reaction, the precursor to a stress fracture, in the foot. She missed the spring track season and a chance to make the world championships team, and didn’t race again until the Beach to Beacon 10K in Maine on August 1.

That series of events might not seem like a logical lead-in to a first marathon. But Thweatt and Troop view things differently.

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“I’m making my debut a lot earlier than I originally thought I would,” Thweatt said. “The plan was to get through 2016 focused on the track, and after that maybe turn to the marathon. But coming off injury, I was trying to get some momentum going again. I believe you have to push your comfort zone to get better, and my coach and I thought physically and psychologically training for a marathon and racing a marathon is hopefully going to make me that much stronger going into next year, and hopefully give me the momentum that I need to have going into the track.”

The transition to first-time marathoner has been eased by continuity in training.

“It’s been tiring because of more volume,” she said, “but my workouts are basically the same, the number of doubles during the week are about the same.” Thweatt, who trains by time rather than distance, said her long run has increased from close to two hours to more like two and a half hours.

“It definitely feels longer in that last additional half hour, but it’s nothing crazy,” she said. “I think I’d rather go into [the marathon] feeling slightly underprepared than like I totally cooked myself.” The two races she’s run while marathon training—an easy win at the Virginia Beach Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon on September 6 and a fourth-place PR of 53:14 at the U.S. national 10-mile championship on October 4—support the contention that Thweatt will start New York on the upswing.

Well-rounded but not obsessive preparation that leaves one ready to race any distance at any time calls to mind someone like 1988 New York City champion Steve Jones, who is among the Boulder residents Thweatt has consulted on the course and distance. As was Jones, Thweatt is more of a blood-and-guts grinder than a pedigreed thoroughbred. “I think [the New York City course] plays to my strengths as opposed to doing something flatter,” she said. “It’s basically a longer version of cross country. I’m strong, I train in Boulder, Colorado—what better place to train for a course like New York?”

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The fastest PR among the American women entered is the 2:38:34 of 18-year-old Alana Hadley. On paper, Thweatt should finish well ahead of the teen. But, as befits a cross country ace, Thweatt is thinking more about place than time.

“Broadly, I’d like to come out on the other side with a positive experience,” she said about her debut. “It’s a tough course, the conditions can be almost anything, so it’s hard to put a number on [a time goal]. I really just want to be competitive in the field and race the race. Place wise, I’d like to be up there in it.”

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